Eminem and Elton John Look Back on ‘Stan’ in New Interview

Em said he was on drugs when he first met Elton

Eminem and Elton John’s collaboration at the Grammys is still wild 17 years on. A rapper who courted controversy for homophobic lyrics rapping with the most famous openly gay entertainer in the world was and remains stunning, so much so that the pair sat down to talk about it in a new piece for Interview.

Em and Elton discussed getting sober, Em’s new album and, of course, their famous duet in the interview. Perhaps most surprising is the fact that Em revealed he was on drugs when he met with Elton for the first time.

“You’re very good on collaborations. We first met through the Grammys, when you asked me to do ‘Stan’. It was an amazing event for me that I’ll never forget,” Elton told Em.
“I’ll never forget it either—and I was on drugs,” Em replied. “I was for sure on drugs when we met.”

Apparently, Shady was still decent at holding it together at this point. Because Sir Elton said that he had no idea that Em was gone.

“I couldn’t tell. I was just mesmerized by you and your performance; it made the hairs on the back of my arms stand up… And when that s**t was thrown at you—about you being homophobic—I just thought, ‘I’m not standing for this. It’s nonsense.’ I had to stand up and defend you. That Grammy performance was the start of a lovely friendship and I’m grateful for that,” John said.

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New Album

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Eventually, John (who is an avowed fan of rap) got to talking about Eminem’s buzzworthy new album, Revival.

“I’ve been working on it for over a year. You know how it is—you make songs, and as you make the new ones, the old ones get old and you throw them out,” Em said of the new tracks. “The album is called Revival. It’s a reflection of where I’m at right now, but also I feel like what I tried to do was diversify. I’ve tried to make a little something for everyone.”

Eminem said he records around 50 songs in an album cycle with the caveat that each new song has to be better than the last one. He said that lackluster tracks end up getting tossed.

On Trump

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Eventually, the conversation turned towards Eminem’s a cappella anti-Trump rap “The Storm”. Elton said he hated to see the state America was in and lauded the rapper for his actions.

“It was about having the right to stand up to oppression. I mean, that’s exactly what the people in the military and the people who have given their lives for this country have fought for—for everybody to have a voice and to protest injustices and speak out against sh*t that’s wrong,” Em said. “We’re not trying to disrespect the military, we’re not trying to disrespect the flag, we’re not trying to disrespect our country. But sh*t is going on that we want to make you aware of.”

“We have a president who does not care about everybody in our country; he is not the president for all of us, he is the president for some of us,” Eminem continued, implying that when being divisive, “He knows what he’s doing.”

Check out the whole interview to see who Em’s favorite rappers are and what tastes he shares with Elton. What do you think? Are you surprised to learn that Elton and Em are still so friendly? Sound off in the comments and be sure to SHARE this article.